


(Y/N) and the Absurdity of Existing

by susabei



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Comedy, Death of the Author, Draco Malfoy is a Simp, Gen, Hogwarts Fourth Year, LITERALLY, Lesbian Character, Lighthearted, Parody, Parody Sue, Self Insert, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Triwizard Tournament, Voldemort is Hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25166101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susabei/pseuds/susabei
Summary: A self insert hijacks the story away from a delusional author.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	(Y/N) and the Absurdity of Existing

**Author's Note:**

> Round 4 for QLFC! Once again, I'm Keeper for the Wasps :) This round was meant to be adventure, with the sub-genre of comedy. I hope it's clear what I'm paroding! The story I wanted to tell with this is much longer than the 3k word limit, unfortunately, so a lot was cut out and edited. Still, I hope it brings out a laugh.
> 
> Content warnings and things to note: mentions of alcohol/intoxication, waiting for someone underage to be legal (this is wrong, don't do this), a suicide mention, major character death, and general fantasy violence. Contains The Good Place-style swearing (aka, all swears are censored hilariously), and chat-speak/purposefully strange grammar (only in the dialogue).
> 
> 2986 words.

She was enjoying non-existence in the void, when she existed, suddenly. A voice (her own) humming and _ahh-_ ing somewhere above her:

_Hmmm…How am I going to make you the COOLEST self-insert ever?_

She recognises this voice as herself, but _not_ herself.

"Is that what I am? Then what are you? My author?"

The Author does not answer her question. _How are you gonna look? What we're working with right now is...Not ideal._

"Fork you. Wait, what the fork? I can't curse?"

 _Hmm,_ The Author ignores her, _she has long indigo hair with..._

"You have short brown hair." The self-insert corrected, "We BOTH have short brown hair."

 _...and curves in all the right places._ The Author continues, sipping her sauvignon blanc with satisfaction.

"We also have them in the wrong places." The self-insert cries, dragging her hands down her face.

_We need a good name._

"I have a good name."

_A name that screams you're important...Magnolia...Anastasia...Cassiopeia...Lyra…_

"I like Lety." She might as well make suggestions, "Or Lupe. Our great-grandmother's name was—"

_I KNOW!_

"What?" Helvetica asks, "Wait, you named me _Helvetica?_ "

 _God, I'm brilliant._ The Author chugs the rest of her wine as a reward. _This is gonna be hilarious._

"Are you going to kill me off at the end?"

Instead of answering her question, The Author immediately inserts Helvetica at the beginning of the fic, where she's asking to sit in a train compartment with none other than The Golden Trio, because duh.

Upon seeing the lack of a house crest on her robes (even though this is a book specific fic), they ask about it before asking for her name. Helvetica is honest and shares that she hasn't been to Hogwarts before this. She then introduces herself as Helvetica FancyLastName, because The Author is too drunk to come up with a surname for her. The three teenagers (by their terrible hair, Helvetica assumes they're in their fourth year), in turn, introduce themselves as Harry, Girl-Rival, and Strawman-Argument. Probably. That's all the last two seem to be good for.

"I can't believe you haven't gone to Hogwarts before!" Says Strawman, who was one of the Weasleys, but it doesn't matter which one because The Author decided they weren't shippable. "What year are you going to be in?"

"I'm twenty-four," says Helvetica, who doesn't want to be fourteen again. "My mortal flesh is but a prison."

Random Weasley doesn't react the way she thought he should, it seems like, if anything, he only heard what he wanted to hear. Or didn't process the information. Helvetica decides he's Ron.

"What house do you want?" Harry asks, and he gets a name because everyone wants to ship their self-insert with the protagonist.

"I'm a Hufflepuff."

There's a look of confusion and pity from all of them, because _obviously_ Hufflepuff is the loser leftover house that no one wants to be in.

"Y'all are lucky you're kids, or else I'd go Honey Badger on your ashes." Helvetica crosses her arms, upset that her dank vintage memes won't be appreciated in 1994.

There was an incident where some blond kid (she didn't bother to pay attention, she was looking out the window cursing her existence) came to harass The Golden Trio. Apparently he stared at her in a _wistful, meaningful way,_ but The Author's omnipotent voice couldn't break through Helvetica's spite ramblings, so it all went ignored. It won't be important later, probably.

.

Helvetica FancyLastName is the first to walk up the steps to sit on the stool where she is sorted in the best house (Gryffindor). Even if she doesn't get the memo and insists, to everyone's confusion, that she is a Hufflepuff. She's seated (by force) with the lions, kicking and yelling about knowing her rights.

She settles down eventually, once everyone is sorted and the food breaks out. It's a wonder anyone's tolerating her at all. Almost as if they're being controlled.

But then Harry makes a comment on Dumbles, and Helvetica opens her big mouth, "Dumbledore's kind of an ashhole." As is with most of the things coming out of her mouth, this is met with gasps of incredulity.

Harry, poor baby, naturally jumps to the old man's defense because of a mixture of idolization and Dumbles being one of the only adults around him to give him positive attention. There's passion in his eyes as he tries to convince her of Dumbledore's absolute inherent goodness, but Helvetica stopped paying attention when Harry said " _great man_ " for the sixth time. When she comes back from her hard dissociation, it's Halloween, and the visiting schools have taken their seats.

"What the fork." She looks around, and everyone's eyes are on her.

"Phoenix, that's you!" Ron nudges her arm, "They called your name!"

"That's literally not my name." Replies Phoenix, whose author decided half-way through the scene that her name wasn't _special_ enough. "Seriously, I thought my name was Helvetica—"

She's cut off by Hermione, who pushes her towards the front against her will. There's people cheering, mainly the Gryffindors while the rest of the houses look like cardboard cutouts of people. One last _ever meaningful_ gaze is held with Harry as she takes the slip of paper out of Dumbledore's hands and walks back with the other champions, where they explain some bullshirt to her about magical contracts and plot devices; even though Phoenix didn't sign anything resembling a contract, she'll be forced to compete.

"So I have to like, locate this holy grail?" It's fun purposefully misinterpreting everything people try to explain to her. You don't get this kind of leniency when you're supposed to be a responsible adult. "Is this my quest?"

There's an attempt at clarification, but Phoenix is too distracted by her imminent death.

.

Instead of researching dragons, Phoenix distracts herself by plotting revenge against The Author, dicking around, and taking long lunches in the quad where she's verbally harrassed by Draco Malfoy, but in a way that _totally_ implies he's crushing on her.

"Ew. Who told you you could talk to me?"

Alright, she's a little harsh considering he's a literal child, but Phoenix doesn't have time to waste on light-hearted romance when she's about to die in a few days via dragon. Also it was weird that they're all babies and she's an adult. It's why she refuses to go to classes, much to Hermione's chargin'.

Luckily, alongside classes, Phoenix miraculously manages to skip other boring crucial plot points that nobody cares about, like Rita Skeeter and SPEW. She skips all the way up to the first task where she refuses to dip her hand in the dragon pouch, resulting in Daddy Crouch angrily throwing the last dragon at her (it nips her nose).

Unceremoniously, she's tossed out into the arena to cheers and heckles. The dragon already looks pissed-off, and there's litter on the grou—

"Oh dang, a hat." Phoenix picks it up, because she never turns down free stuff, "Oh, it's raggedy." It's ripped and musty. Smells like broken dreams and Cheetos.

Hushes of the hat in the area being _the_ Sorting Hat rise up. This means nothing to Phoenix.

"There's a prize in here!" She pulls out a badash-motherforking-sword.

"That's the Sword of Gryffindor!" shouts Hermione from the audience in a way that allows everyone important to hear her, "It only appears to truly worthy Lions!"

"I'm a Puff." Phoenix reminds, "And I can't swordfight."

The dragon doesn't give a damn. It rears up its great, magnificent head and opens its mouth, molten fire pouring from its jaws.

And of course, in the most heroic fashion, Phoenix drops the sword and runs the hell away. In the midst of her fleeing, she bangs her shin up against a rock and hisses in pain.

The dragon stops.

More hushed whispers: accusatory. Suspicious.

" **You speak my tongue.** " The dragon tells, and at first she thinks it's English.

"I—" her shoulders slump, realises she's hissing, yells at the sky: "YOU MADE ME SPEAK PARSEL?" Next, she'll have a unicorn animagus or doe patronus. Ugh.

From above, or in the distance, she hears the cackle of The Author's voice.

" _Wait._ " Pause, "Dragons speak parsel?"

" **God speaks parsel.** " The dragon leaves no room for argument.

"Wow." Phoenix replies, "That's some BDE. Can you stop attacking me? I'm not trying to steal your egg, it's a decoy."

" **That cheap toy? Go ahead.** " What a nice dragon. " **In exchange, you must break my chains.** "

And release an untamable beast upon the innocent student body? "Sure." She takes out her wand without hesitation and blasts through the shackle as if it were brittle glass.

Phoenix receives negative points for the first task.

.

Inexplicably, the Sword of Gryffindor is still in her possession after the round. All attempts to remove it from her have resulted in it glowing menacingly and burning anyone who isn't her. Thankfully, this is easing the rumors that she's the heir of Slytherin (what ever happened to the idea that Harry was the heir?) but it's spurring rumors she's the heir of Gryffindor. Half of the student body is in awe of her while everyone else views her with disdain. It makes for interesting walks across the halls (but not classes, she's still skipping those).

Also, people keep asking her to the Yule Ball, and it's starting to get tiring telling everyone she's not going. Especially when teachers try to exert their authority on her, saying she's _required_ to go as a champion. If they try and drag her to that ball, she'll only wear sweatpants and a tank top and make a complete fool out of Hogwarts.

"No." She says before Draco gets a single word out. Adventure stories shouldn't have romantic, lighthearted side-plots anyways. She's in a game of life and death! If things were normal, she'd have to be preparing for the second round. Bathing with an egg of all things…

Hm. That's right, they're going to steal away some poor rando that she'll miss the most. But who is she supposed to miss the most? Whomever the reviewers want her to miss the most? Has it been a chapter yet? Everything's happening too fast, too much. Because she blinks once, and now she's in the middle of a big ash lake in a fun 1910s bathing suit that's almost guaranteed to give her a wedgie, and her sword, still tied to her hip.

"Good luck." Says Harry beside her, in his own swimsui—

"You're in the tournament?" She squints at Harry accusingly, "I thought I replaced you."

Harry's looking at her like she's grown a second head, but a _sexy_ second head, because he's supposed to have a crush on her probably.

"She can't change her mind in the middle of the story, people will notice." Phoenix mutters, shaking her head. No one pays attention to her at all until the champions begin their dive and she...stays on the deck.

"Can't swim." She lies. Besides, aren't witches not supposed to swim? Wasn't that a classic trait of witches? Why swim when they can magic themselves out of water? Across water? Nothing makes sense.

As she's continuously coaxed into the water, Krum returns first with Hermione before Fleur with Gabrielle. Where are Harry, Ron, and her person? They're taking their sweet time, people are starting to worry; shouting something at her, about how 'only she can save them' with her special gift, but how can parsel save the poor sons of benches in the water? Maybe she's also part mermaid and nobody told her.

"Oh, ew." Phoenix frowns as a brunette, redhead, and blond emerge from the lake, "You've got to be joking."

 _He's a fan favorite,_ The Author says, enjoying her suffering, _He likes you, heheheheh._

"He's two."

_You're two._

"I'm you."

_Debatable._

Phoenix knows better than to argue, but she's still mad. She marches off the stand into a boat to fork off to the common room to sulk as Harry lifts Ron and Draco to the dry surface. She doesn't stay to see if Draco spares Harry a genuine thank you or tells him to get away from him, nor does she hear them announcing her disqualification.

She'll probably end up winning anyways.

The day of the last task, she's telling everyone she sees that Not-Moody is Barty Junior in disguise and that Voldie will return, but naturally no one listens to her because they're _hypnotised_ by her beautiful face which The Author had decided last minute to make part Veela. (Fleur refers to Phoenix as her cousin now.) It's almost as if against all odds and will, this story wants to go on. Barreling towards death.

At the announcement of the _fifth_ champion's name, however, she loses it. Again.

"Okay, what the hell?" Phoenix points at Cedric, who doesn't belong there, " _Three_ Hogwarts champions? He wasn't here in the beginning!" She tries to elbow Harry, "Right? Am I right?"

Harry seems surprised she's talking to him, _acknowledging his presence,_ and he blushes deeply, despite his dark skin. He stutters out an answer to her, but Phoenix has already decided he's a lost cause.

Rather than writing out the paranoia of the maze, the monsters, the strifes, the riddles, the brief confession from Cedric that he too was in love with Phoenix, The Author gets to the point where all _three_ Hogwarts champions meet at the center, where Harry and Cedric **insist** that Phoenix be the one to win.

"Y'all take it, I'm good."

Naturally, this doesn't happen, and through The-Author-Ex-Machina, she ends up in a swampy graveyard with the other two. Her half-hearted cries of 'if you don't touch that cup right now, we're all dead' are (naturally) ignored. And one Avada Kevada to the face later, Cedric is dead and Harry is bound by a statue. Miraculously, she remains unharmed and untied.

"I'm in danger." Phoenix laughs, standing next to a dead body and Harry's trapped form as Voldemort rises up from the cauldron. But he isn't an ugly, gross, slimy little scaley one born of parents not married to each other. He was...hawt. With a 'wt'. Do kids still say hawt? And he totally looked like Christian Coulson in the Chamber of Secrets movie because phew, we're gay but we're not blind.

"Hey, why the fork is Voldie looking at me like that _,_ I thought I was his kid."

 _Nope, you two were totally in love in the past...Probably._ The Author mumbles, squinting at her own words on the screen. _Time travel or immortality or reincarnation...I don't know, but it's_ _ **totally not**_ _illegal or sketchy...Yeah._

"When you have to specify that it's technically not pedophilia, it's a bad sign," said Maia, who was used to her name changing in the middle of her sentences at this point. "Also, I'm a lesbian. _We're lesbians._ "

 _I can't ship you with a girl! Who's gonna read that?_ The Author tsks bitterly, _I need the thirst of pre-teens to fuel my power...You understand._

Maia doesn't. She misses when her name was as simple as Helvetica, but at least Maia's less obnoxious than Phoenix.

" _Maia._ " Hot Voldemort speaks with a familiarity that shouldn't be forking allowed.

"Hey." Maia ignores Harry Potter's shouts because ngl, he's kind of annoying, "Wassup."

"You know me?" There should be a description on how eager Hot Voldemort is for her answer, but all she thinks about is how the hell did people think a twenty-six-year-old Christian Coulson passed for a sixteen-year-old.

"Uh. Not personally."

The Death Eaters, who had totally arrived sometime in the past few paragraphs—it wasn't relevant to the story at the time—mutter in curiosity at her.

"I had hoped you would be...older," he hums, eyeing her.

"That's forking disgusting and predatory, if the next words out of your mouth are 'I've waited this long, I'll wait a few more years', you'll die by my blade." She's grown to like the Sword of Gryffindor, which she'll have to think of a new name for.

Before Hot Voldemort can begin his speech about her returning to the Dark, she interrupts, "Yeah, whatever, I'll join you."

"WHAT." Harry's voice behind her sounds betrayed, she almost feels bad.

"Yeah, yeah, hold up," her hand raises up in a 'stop' gesture towards ol' four eyes, "I'll go with you _if_ you do something for me."

Hot Voldemort seems intrigued and amused at her bargaining, but because he loved her (or something), he allowed it, "Ask."

"I need you to kill The Author."

_WHAT._

"Yeah, just, murder her. Painfully. With spikes. Or fire. Maybe a rabid dog. Be creative. Surprise me."

As The Author sputters and attempts to gain control of her character, Hot Voldemort hums over Maia's request. He expected her to ask that he not harm Harry or someone else she loved, but nope. She wants hot revenge.

"Very well." Hot Voldemort agrees, raising his wand up towards the void of the fourth wall and while he's distracted, Maia charges: bringing up ForkSlayer (previously known as the Sword of Gryffindor) through his stomach and up his nose. It's disgusting. She gets blood in her hair.

There's yelling. A scuffle. Maia can year The Author screaming in the heavens. Spells shoot at her which are deflected with her sword in a manner only seen in Star Wars movies (which is weird, because she's never seen one). She reaches Harry who tries to confess to her in the heat of the moment, and stabs him too.

"There's no story if the protag is dead," she reasons, before realizing she's the protagonist, "Aw, hell, suicide isn't the answer."

She thinks it over, leaning on ForkSlayer and not realizing that the other Death Eaters are now bowing to her. When she notices, they are chanting her name (changed again), and swearing their allegiance to her.

"Oh." She starts, a wicked smile growing on her face, " _I like this._ "

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back (if you're subscribed to me, you know I'm already on round 8), but never uploaded it. I'd like to expand this silly universe one day.
> 
> If you liked this, consider reading my other Harry Potter stories, or my other parody(ish) self-insert, Jock-a-Mo, which I wrote for Twilight.


End file.
